Beach Music (80 page)

“Rachel,” the child answered.

“Put it in the bucket. This turtle’s named Rachel.”

“Is it mine?” the girl asked.

“That’s your turtle,” Lucy answered. “Yours forever and ever.”

Leah brought up ninety-six turtles that were ready to make their walks to the sea that evening. Twenty-three were still weighted down with yolk they would need to absorb before they tested their strength against the Atlantic. Leah buried those turtles again in the same sand she had removed. She smoothed it flat with the palm of her hand and covered it with wire to prevent the raccoons from making a mid-morning raid.

The crowd followed Lucy and Leah down to the beach fifty yards away. With the shaft of a damaged, headless five-iron, Lucy drew a large semicircle in the sand that she told the crowd they could not pass beyond. The tourists spread out along that drawn perimeter and watched closely as Leah tipped over the bucket and those ninety-six turtles boiled out and made their first struggling efforts to reach the sea. The tide was coming in and running strong to the north as those tiny loggerheads, afire with sudden life, each the size of a silver dollar and the color of unshined military shoes, fanned out in careless disorder, each one enclosed in the sudden responsibility of its own destiny. The crowd began to cheer, urging the turtles onward as they made their halting, unskilled way toward the roaring surf. One turtle led the way, breaking far ahead of the pack. But all of them moved in the same direction.

“How do they know to go toward the ocean?” a young mother asked.

“Scientists say the light,” Lucy explained.

“What do you think?” the mother asked.

“These are South Carolina turtles like my boys here,” Lucy said, smiling at us. “I think they listen to the waves. I think they just love beach music.”

When the first turtle hit the first wave it tumbled upside down and righted itself quickly, undeterred. It had felt the element it was
destined to join and when the second wave hit that turtle was swimming. Pure instinct drove those tiny turtles toward the surf as the topography and smell of that beachhead imprinted themselves forever in their newly hatched primitive brains. Once they had made this walk to the sea, you could take those loggerheads on a spaceflight to Mars, return them to the Lido of Venice, and they would still make their way back to the Isle of Orion to lay their eggs. In them, the homing instinct was a form of genius.

As each turtle reached the water, I could see the joy in Lucy’s face. She never tired of watching the little creatures struggling over the sands until they reached the sea. Once in the water, they took off like young buntings in first flight. She watched as their tiny, snakelike heads appeared on the surface of the wind-driven sea, to take in a pinch of air, then resume their glorious and perilous journey. Her happiness was an earned pleasure that she could share with strangers.

“Leah,” she said, reaching for Leah’s hand again, “every time I see this, I feel like I’ve discovered God all over again.”

A young mother who had red hair approached Lucy and said, “This is against the law, isn’t it? I read an article recently that said that man should let nature work in its own way.”

“Then nature wants the loggerhead turtle to die out,” Lucy said.

“Then that is God’s will,” the woman said.

“It might be. But I sure as hell don’t agree,” Lucy said.

“You’d go against God’s will?” the woman, who wore a gold cross on her necklace, said.

Lucy answered, “It won’t be the first time the two of us’ve disagreed. This is the third night you’ve been with us for a turtle release.”

“No, it’s my fourth,” the redheaded woman said, looking away from the beach toward the line of houses.

“Stay for Labor Day,” John Hardin said to the woman. “We’re giving my mother a big party. Everyone’s invited.”

“I won’t be here that long,” the woman said, as Lucy saw revolving blue lights reflected in the woman’s pupil. “In fact, I’ve got to leave now.”

“You shouldn’t’ve called the cops,” Lucy said. “I try to help the turtles have a fighting chance.”

“You break the law,” the woman said. “I have a degree in biology. You’re interfering with the natural process.”

“Lady, you called the cops on my mother,” John Hardin said, blocking the woman’s escape route.

“Kill her, John Hardin,” Tee said.

“Shut up, Tee,” Dupree warned, moving between John Hardin and the woman. “Easy now. This can all be explained.”

“My mother’s got leukemia, lady,” John Hardin said, his anger growing as the police drew closer. “You think going to jail’s going to help my mother fight cancer?”

“No one’s above the law,” the woman said.

“How many years in prison’ll I get after I kill this woman, Dallas?” John Hardin asked, and now some of the other tourists began to murmur among themselves and one woman shouted for the police to hurry.

“It wouldn’t count as premeditated murder,” Dallas said. “You went wild after the lady arrested your mama, who was dying of cancer. I think you’d probably serve three years with time off for good behavior.”

“My boys are big pranksters, honey,” Lucy said to the terrified woman.

“But I’ve spent half my life in the insane asylum up in Columbia,” John Hardin said. “Surely, a jury’d have pity on a poor schizophrenic.”

“Cut it out, John Hardin. Quit egging him on, Dallas. Relax, honey. Go on up to my house and fix yourself a drink,” Lucy said, and she waved a finger of warning at the rest of us as the sheriff approached accompanied by the young woman who worked for the Wildlife Department.

“My, my, Sheriff,” Lucy said. “What are you doing out here on a pretty night like this when hunters are out killing deer out of season and good ol’ boys are staked out all over these creeks baiting for shrimp?”

“Got a complaint about you, Lucy,” Sheriff Littlejohn said.

“I’ve got a drawerful of complaints about you, Lucy,” the wildlife officer, Jane, said. “But Lucy insists that she knows better than any law enforcement could.”

“If you know so damn much, explain why the loggerhead’s an endangered species,” Lucy said.

“As your attorney of record, I advise you to remain silent, Mother,” Dallas said.

“Mama, are they going to arrest the turtle lady?” a little girl cried out.

“I’ve been doing this same job for years. The same damn way,” Lucy said. “They keep changing the rules on me.”

“I’ve got a warrant for your arrest, Lucy,” Sheriff Littlejohn said.

“Hey, Sheriff, Mom’s sick. She’s not going to spend the night in jail,” I said.

“I went to school with you, Littlejohn,” Dupree said. “You flunked English.”

“I got a
D,”
Littlejohn said.

“Who’s got a tire iron?” John Hardin said to the crowd. “I’m gonna beat this redheaded woman down to crab bait.”

“You heard him, Sheriff,” the woman said. “He threatened me in earshot of the law itself.”

“He’s got more voices talking in his head than a TV set,” the sheriff said. “Pay no mind.”

“What law was broken, Sheriff?” Dallas asked.

“No one’s allowed to go into a turtle nest,” the sheriff said.

Jane from Wildlife said, “She helps them get to the ocean. That’s against the rules.”

“My mother didn’t touch a nest tonight,” I said. “You’ve got a beachful of witnesses. My daughter and I dug up that nest. Isn’t that true?”

The crowd murmured its assent.

“Then I’ll be pleased to arrest you, Jack.”

“But she supervised the whole thing,” the redheaded woman said. “She was definitely in command.”

“Cuff me, Littlejohn,” Lucy said, playing to the crowd. “It’ll be front-page news across the state.”

A man’s voice rang out behind the sheriff. “Leave my wife alone, Littlejohn.” It was Dr. Jim Pitts, who had run down from the screened-in porch to see what the disturbance was. “They were
making pancakes and waffles from these turtle’s eggs when we got to the island. Lucy changed all that.”

“Get back to your houses, people,” the sheriff called out to the crowd, but they refused to disassemble and remained clustered and aggravated, waiting to see how the confrontation would resolve itself.

“She sacrifices everything for these damn turtles,” Dr. Pitts said. “Everything.”

“We’re not saying she hasn’t done good work in the past …” Jane said.

“I dug up all the turtles, Sheriff,” Leah said. “I put them in the bucket and I carried them down here near the beach. My grandmother didn’t do one thing.”

“That’s right,” people in the crowd said.

“If anyone touches you, Mama, I’ll kill them with my bare hands,” John Hardin said, moving between the sheriff and his mother.

“The arrest warrant’s got your name on it, Lucy,” Sheriff Littlejohn said.

“Let me just go down to the jailhouse,” Lucy said. “Come with me, Dallas, and bail me out of there.”

“Trust a goddamn lawyer in this country?” John Hardin said. “After Watergate I wouldn’t trust one of you bastards to read out a phone number from the men’s room.”

“Shut up, John Hardin,” Dupree said. “You sound like you need a shot.”

“A man expresses a simple opinion, Dupree, and you call for Thorazine.”

Sheriff Littlejohn ended the discussion by cuffing Lucy’s hands together in a single, economical movement that caught everyone by surprise. Lucy took two steps toward the squad car, the sheriff firmly gripping her elbow. Then Lucy interfered with the arrest by fainting head first into the sand in front of her. Dr. Pitts lunged toward her and lifted her head out of the sand as John Hardin tackled the redheaded lady and wrestled her to the sand. My brothers pulled John Hardin off, but he punched Tee in the mouth and kicked Dallas squarely in the genitalia as the crowd began shouting so loudly that
someone sitting on their deck up the beach went in and alerted Security at the Isle of Orion gate. When the sheriff fired a single shot in the air to restore calm, Dr. Pitts screamed loudly and commanded that everyone step back and allow Lucy room to breathe. Sheriff Littlejohn sighed, then bent down and unlocked the handcuffs that bound Lucy’s wrists together. Lucy looked as frail as any shell that lay strewn and storm-tossed on the beach. Dr. Pitts had tears running down his face, but they were fierce tears of anger, not sorrow. Though he tried to speak, fury disbanded any words, and he stammered over the body of his wife. This stranger who had married my mother, I thought once more, loves her far more deeply than any of us realize.

“Rape, murder, pillage, drugs, and mayhem all over Waterford County,” Tee screamed, “and the high sheriff of the low country boldly arrests our mother, an environmentalist with leukemia. Good work, Littlejohn, you silly-ass loser of the twentieth century.”

The crowd slowly divested itself of a shape, drifting like smoke into the gentle last light, a moon sneaking a forehead above the waterline to the east. I knelt down and lifted my mother up into my arms and began walking back to her house. Still trying to find words, Dr. Pitts trailed behind us and Dallas picked up Leah and rode her on his back, following our lead.

In the house Dr. Pitts exploded after I had taken Lucy to her bedroom and she had recovered strength enough to take a sip of water and change into her nightclothes before she fell asleep.

“I have something to say to you boys,” Dr. Pitts began as he poured himself a tumbler full of scotch. “I know you love your mother and I know she loves you. But you’ll kill her faster if you don’t get control of yourselves. All of you need to learn to be part of a room without filling it up. You need to learn to be in a scene without being the whole scene. You don’t need to be the funniest, the wildest, the craziest, the weirdest, or the loudest person on earth to get Lucy’s attention. She loves all of you. But there’s too much commotion around you boys. I demand that you quit turning every single thing into an event. Everything is over the top when you guys are around. Learn to relax. To muse things over. To look at things calmly and at a normal pace. Why is that impossible with you
McCalls? Why must every day seem like a home movie from the Apocalypse? Your mother needs rest from all this. She needs quiet. And tomorrow, you’re giving her a party and the whole town’s invited. Everybody. I haven’t met a single soul who isn’t invited to Lucy’s party. Black, white, everybody in town has called to RSVP for tomorrow and even Lucy doesn’t know half of them. Things move from an event, then a spectacle, then an extravaganza. You attract noise and disorder. You’re all in love with what’s bad for Lucy. You’re killing her. You boys are killing what you can’t stand to say good-bye to …”

“I agree with Dr. Pitts,” John Hardin said. “You guys are just scumbugs and shouldn’t be allowed near Mama.”

“Why don’t you write a ‘Dear Abby’ column for fruitcakes, John Hardin?” Dupree said.

“You had the worst grades of any of the brothers, by far,” John Hardin lashed back. “The only job you could hold down was locking up crazy people.”

“No harm in that,” Dupree said. “I get to spend all my time round wonderful guys like you.”

“What a low-life, criminal-type loser you are,” John Hardin said to Dupree. “Making a mockery of the mentally ill.”

“You two are scaring Leah,” Dallas suggested quietly. “Jack’s raised her to think that life is full of teddy bears, free pizza, and photos of the tooth fairy. She’s been vaccinated to fight off the full horror of being a McCall.”

“Listen to you, here it goes,” Dr. Pitts said. “Each one of you takes it to a higher and higher pitch. Can you shut up? Can you shut your mouths now and let my poor wife sleep?”

“Shall we call off the party?” Tee asked Dr. Pitts.

“Your mother would never speak to me again if I called off her party,” Dr. Pitts said, rising and moving toward his bedroom. “Help me make it go smoothly, boys. Please. I beg of you.”

“Hey, Doc,” Dupree said seriously. “Thanks for loving our mom. It’s nice of you and we appreciate it.”

“She’s had a hard life,” I said, “and she hardly got a single break. But Mom’s said that you are the best thing that ever happened to her.”

• • •

W
hen Lucy rose the next morning, refreshed and vibrant, she referred with delicious irony to our party for her as “The Last Supper.” She put on a pretty dress that she had bought at Saks Fifth Avenue in Atlanta and a broad-brimmed hat that came from a boutique on the Via del Corso in Rome. She radiated the natural prettiness she had brought with her out of the North Carolina mountains, as she watched Dr. Pitts make her breakfast and fret over her. His sweetness clearly tickled her, even though there was something schoolmarmish and fastidious about it. His mouth was pursed constantly as though he had just said “harrumph” and his face looked like the old maid on the dog-eared pack of cards that we used to play with on those days that we stayed home from school with fevers. It seemed to me that their love was based on their common need for order and mannerliness in their lives. Both had endured lives of chaos and incivility in their first marriages, and they provided each other with safe harbor at last.